Charlie Kirk’s memorial service on Sunday featured a bevy of the country’s top brass sharing how the late Christian conservative had impacted their lives. Speakers highlighted the many ways Kirk lived out his faith and his heart for strengthening the American family. One attendee at the Kirk’s memorial was a young Utah rancher who said Kirk inspired him to drop out of college and focus on building his family.

Twenty-six-year-old Utah rancher Eli Bangerter shared that Kirk’s message of family and faith encouraged him to do things differently with his life. Kirk was the first person to tell Bangerter to drop out of college, something his family wasn’t too thrilled about. “I was the first one in my family to drop out. It was kind of a disappointment to them, but I was just totally impacted by [Kirk’s] message about families,” he said. Bangerter and his wife have two children, with another on the way. “I know that he preached about God, and it’s a commandment to have kids, so we’ll figure it out,” he said, citing Kirk’s mantra of “Get married. Have more kids than you can afford.””We love Charlie and his legacy is huge and totally impacted my life and the life of my kids,” he said. “Believe in God, defend our freedoms and fight for righteousness and for truth and for what’s true and right,” said Bangerter. “That’s what Charlie fought for, and we love him for that.”

Kirk’s opposition to universities, which have been sometimes referred to as “indoctrination stations,” was no secret. Kirk, who never graduated from college, referred to college as a scam and even wrote a book entitled, The College Scam. “College is supposed to provide a pathway to financial security and career success. That promise is true for fewer and fewer graduates,” he wrote in a 2022 op-ed. “Student loan debt is crushing students and their parents, robbing young people of the dream of homeownership, family formation, and financial security. And yet, colleges have profited handsomely off this relationship.”

He also accused colleges of filling students with leftist ideologies. “I firmly believe that most—if not all—the destructive ideas that are now eating away at the foundation of American society originated on college campuses. Critical race theory, radical gender theory, intersectionality, wokeism, Antifa, Defund the Police, white fragility, speech codes, cancel culture, ‘anti-racism,’ ‘The Green New Deal,’ and on and on.” Some conservatives have theorized that Kirk’s alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, who grew up in a conservative home, might have been radicalized into leftist ideology while he was attending college.